Мэр Нацрат-Илита Шимон Гафсу назвал себя «нацистской сволочью»

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Мэр Нацрат-Илита Шимон Гафсу назвал себя «нацистской сволочью»



http://russian.rt.com/article/15431

Мэр израильского города Нацрат-Илит Шимон Гафсу начал предвыборную кампанию, расклеив по всему городу плакаты с собственным изображением и заявлением о том, что он «нацистская сволочь». По словам градоначальника, неоднозначные плакаты - эффективная предвыборная технология, сообщает The Telegraph.

Многим в израильском городе Нацрат-Илит сначала показалось, что оскорбительные плакаты могут развязать этническую войну. «Шимон Гафсу - нацистская сволочь, местный хулиган, который грубо попирает право палестинских граждан жить там, где они хотят, и скупать земли, которые в любом случае принадлежат им, но были украдены силой», написано на одном из предвыборных плакатов кандидата.

Таким образом без какого-либо предупреждения один из наиболее откровенных политиков Израиля развесил на самых видных местах в городе плакаты с оскорбительными цитатами своих противников. Когда полицейские обратились к господину Гафсу с сообщением о том, что он стал жертвой расистских подстрекательств, политик признался, что это его рук дело. Хотя, когда дело дошло до разбирательств с полицией, Шимон Гафсу поспешил отдать приказ снять оскорбительные плакаты.

В результате рейтинг поддержки кандидата по опросах общественного мнения повысился на 7%, и всё внимание СМИ сосредоточилось именно на нём. «Моя кампания очень умная. Она привела меня к такому результату, это доказывает, что это хорошая кампания», - отметил Гафсу.

Его противники придерживаются другого мнения. Они обвиняют Шимона Гафсу в намеренном разжигании противостояния в этнически-смешанном городе Нацрат-Илит, чтобы привлечь голоса правых на выборах 22 октября. Большинство конкурентов Шимона Гафсу сходятся в том, что его кампания расистская и ставит под угрозу всю политическую систему страны.

Однако действующий мэр города, который дружен с израильским премьер-министром Биньямином Нетаньяху, уверен в обратном. На новых плакатах, которыми он заменил скандальные полотна, говорится: «Нацрат-Илит - навсегда еврейский» и «Нет законам, которые позволяют каждому гражданину жить там, где он хочет. Время охранять дом».

Гражданские правозащитные группировки уже обратились к генеральному прокурору Израиля с заявлением о том, что предвыборная кампания Шимона Гафсу «состоит целиком из подстрекательств к расовой ненависти».

«Речь идёт о расистском мэре, который использует расизм в своей предвыборной кампании. Он гордится тем, что он расист», - заявил Ахмед Тиби, член израильского парламента.

«Я не расист, - заявил в ответ Шимон Гафсу. - Но если израильское государство расистское, я горжусь тем, что я расист. Если бы я думал, Израиль - страна для всех, меня бы здесь не было. Почему я должен посылать своих сыновей в армию, чтобы они рисковали жизнью, если это страна для всех? Это еврейская страна».

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The Israeli mayor of upper Nazareth who called himself 'racist scum’

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/israel/10309236/The-Israeli-mayor-of-upper-Nazareth-who-called-himself-racist-scum.html



Shimon Gafsou began campaigning for re-election as mayor of Upper Nazareth with posters calling himself “racist scum”. But it’s working, he tells Robert Tait.

The incendiary messages seemed to herald the declaration of ethnic warfare. "Shimon Gafsou is racist scum and a neighbourhood bully who boorishly tramples the basic rights of Arab citizens to live wherever they want and to buy lands which, in any case, were theirs and were stolen from them by force," read one.

Without warning and with no apparent pretext, one of Israel's most outspoken politicians was being subjected to no-holds-barred accusations of racism by his opponents in prominently displayed posters.

But when police called Mr Gafsou, the mayor of Upper Nazareth [Nazareth Illit in Hebrew] to tell him he was the target of racial incitement, he had a confession to make; the "attacks" were his own work.

He had placed the posters - featuring real quotes from his fiercest critics - at strategic points in the city as a vote-winning gambit in his mayoral re-election campaign.

Hearing that they had set off alarm bells, he quickly ordered their removal and rang the local police chief to tell him to call off his forces.

Any embarrassment was offset by the political dividend - a seven per cent jump in support in the opinion polls and instant media attention.

"My campaign is very clever. It brings you here so that says it was a good campaign," Mr Gafsou gleefully told The Telegraph.

His opponents see it differently. They accuse Mr Gafsou - who counts Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel's prime minister, among his friends - of deliberately stirring up racial tensions in ethnically-mixed Upper Nazareth, in a bid to woo right-wing Jewish votes in the October 22 poll.

More generally, some see his campaign as the manifestation of openly racist attitudes that are in danger of entering the Israeli political mainstream.

Fresh posters, put up by the mayor to replace the fake ones, have done little to dispel such notions.

"Nazareth Illit Jewish forever," declares one. "No more accepting the law that makes possible for every citizen to live where he wants. It's time to guard the home."

Another boasts of having "stopped the demographic change" that saw the Arab share of the population rising. "I will stop them from building an Arab school. I will work to construct neighbourhoods for Jewish citizens," Mr Gafsou states in another poster. "Nazareth Illit is a Jewish city."

The messages have drawn protests from civil rights groups, who have complained to Yehuda Weinstein, Israel's attorney general, that the mayor is running a re-election campaign "consisting wholly of racial incitement".

"We are talking about a racist mayor who is using his racism in his re-election campaign. He is proud to be a racist," said Ahmed Tibi, an Arab member of the Knesset, Israel's parliament, whose quote was used in one of Mr Gafsou's early posters.

"His words sound more authentic in German: 'I will keep this city as a German city. I will not allow Jewish school in this city'."

Mr Gafsou is no stranger to controversy. He generated international headlines after banning the public display of Christmas trees. His refusal to allow an Arabic-language school to accommodate his city's 2,000 school-age children has become a national saga.

Sitting in his office in Upper Nazareth's modern municipality building, the mayor - who emigrated to Israel with his family from Tunisia when he was nine - is unapologetic.

"I'm not a racist. [But] if to say the country of Israel is a Jewish country is racist, I'm proud to be a racist," he said. "If I thought that Israel was a country for everybody, I don't think I could stay here. Why should I send my sons to the best units [in the army] to risk themselves if this is a country for everybody? This is a Jewish country.

"Ninety per cent, at least, of the Jewish mayors [in Israel] think like me but only two or three per cent have enough courage to say so."

On the debate over Upper Nazareth he added: "The people who want to live in Nazareth Illit have to understand that they are living in a Jewish city. A Jewish city has some rules that they have to understand.

"For example, on the day of the memorials for the soldiers, we have no businesses open. On Yom Kippur, there is no traffic on the streets and everyone can walk in the middle of the streets as they go to the synagogue. This is the difference between a Jewish city and a mixed city."

He insisted, however: "I didn't say there was no place for others. Almost 18 per cent of the population are non-Jewish. But they come here to live in a Jewish city and they know it before and they know it now."

Upper Nazareth is in many ways a microcosm of Israel, where around 20 per cent of the population, excluding the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, is Arab.

Located on a hill rising above historic Nazareth - the Biblical home of Jesus - the new city was created in 1958 to bring Jews to the Galilee region, where the bulk of the country's Arabs live.

But its modern facilities have also attracted migrants from neighbouring Arab towns and villages, including Nazareth itself. Around 18 per cent of its 42,000 inhabitants are Arabs, according to last year's census figures - double the proportion of a decade earlier.

Mr Gafsou says the figure would be more than 35 per cent if he had not taken steps to reverse the trend after being elected mayor in 2008.

These include establishing religious schools - known as Yeshivat Hesder - for soldiers serving in the Israeli army in strategic areas to stop the spread of Arab neighbourhoods. He has also housed around 20 displaced families from Gush Katif, a former Jewish settlement in Gaza evacuated in 2005.

In a move that promises to transform his city's secular character, Mr Gafsou is spearheading the building of a neighbourhood for 20,000 ultra-orthodox Jews on land Arab politicians say was confiscated from Arab villages. It will consist of 3,000 homes sold at knockdown prices thanks to subsidies from Mr Netanyahu's government.

Any discomfort felt by the secular Jewish population - around half of whom are immigrants from the former Soviet Union - will be cancelled out by the consolation of having fewer Arab neighbours, he argues: "Ninety-five per cent of the Russians prefer to have Orthodox Jews living next to them than Arabs."

The mayor's words struck a chord with Gary Muster, 57, a local businessman sitting in Greg's Coffee Shop in a city centre shopping mall, who admitted the Jewish population feared Arabs.

"For the last three or four years, Nazareth Illit has felt under occupation from the Arab neighbours, who have decided to come and live with us," he said.

"I came to live here as a Jew and to keep the Jewish tradition and culture. But we are sitting in a coffee shop and 80 per cent of those around us are Arabs. The problem is their feeling inside. They can sit and drink coffee and outside it seems they are just like us, but they hate us."

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http://news.israelinfo.ru/law/47730

17 сентября 2013

Впервые: БАГАЦ уволил двух обвиняемых мэров

Кол­ле­гия из ше­сти су­дей БАГАЦ при­ня­ла пре­це­дент­ный вер­дикт, от­стра­нив от долж­но­сти мэ­ра Нац­рат-Или­та Ши­мо­на Гаф­су и мэ­ра Ра­мат а-Ша­рон Ицх­а­ка Рух­бер­ге­ра.

Оба мэ­ра на­хо­дят­ся под су­дом, им предъ­яв­ле­ны об­ви­не­ния в кор­руп­ции. До сих пор предъ­яв­ле­ние об­ви­не­ния не счи­та­лось в Из­ра­и­ле ос­но­ва­ни­ем для от­стра­не­ния от долж­но­сти из­бран­но­го гла­вы мест­ной вла­сти, хо­тя ми­ни­стры, об­ви­нен­ные в уго­лов­ных пра­во­на­ру­ше­ни­ях, со вре­мен пре­це­ден­та Арье Де­ри ав­то­ма­ти­че­ски от­стра­ня­ют­ся от долж­но­сти.

Вер­дикт БАГАЦ рас­про­стра­ня­ет на глав мест­ных ор­га­нов вла­сти пра­ви­ло, дей­ству­ю­щее для чле­нов выс­шей ис­пол­ни­тель­ной вла­сти.

Выс­ший суд спра­вед­ли­во­сти не на­шел за­кон­ных ос­но­ва­ний для сня­тия об­ви­ня­е­мых мэ­ров с пред­вы­бор­ной гон­ки. Од­на­ко в слу­чае, ес­ли они бу­дут из­бра­ны, им, ви­ди­мо, при­дет­ся вновь уй­ти в от­став­ку, что обес­смыс­ли­ва­ет уча­стие Гаф­су и Рух­бер­ге­ра в пред­вы­бор­ной борь­бе.

21:00 Се­го­дня про­ку­ра­ту­ра объ­яви­ла, что она со­би­ра­ет­ся по­дать еще од­но об­ви­ни­тель­ное за­клю­че­ние про­тив Ши­мо­на Гаф­су по кор­руп­ци­он­но­му де­лу. Речь идет о по­лу­че­нии взят­ки в об­мен на предо­став­ле­ние эко­но­ми­че­ской ком­па­ни­ей На­це­рет-Или­та льгот тор­го­во­му пред­при­я­тию "Шук Рам­ле-Лод".